Word: coloratura
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...prettiest thing about Meryl in those days was her singing voice. A promising coloratura soprano, she began taking lessons in New York with Voice Coach Estelle Liebling. "The first opera I went to," recalls Meryl, "was Douglas Moore's The Wings of the Dove, with Beverly Sills. It was incredible to see her onstage. Until then, I thought she was just a nice lady who had the lesson before me." One morning Meryl got up, squashed her glasses underfoot, put peroxide and lemon juice on her hair and set out to be "the perfect Seventeen magazine knockout." Boys quickly...
Atlanta's Spelman College harmonized with an apt duet of famous singers as it granted honorary fine arts degrees. One was to Opera Soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs, 53, a Spelman alumna who polished her coloratura with a Marian Anderson Scholarship. The other, fittingly, was awarded the legendary Anderson herself, now 77. Hailed as "the most famous and best loved contralto of our time," Anderson received a standing ovation for her long, path-marking career. Responded she in a brief, upbeat acceptance: "It's all waiting for you out there, and you can make your lives what you want them...
...calamitous wedding day, deserted by her bridegroom. (The young Miss Havisham is sung by Gianna Rolandi, who has a generous mad scene of her own.) There is a brushstroke plot involving an inquest into Miss Havisham's death, but the opera is really a star vehicle for a coloratura. Argento had Beverly Sills in mind when he began work two years ago. She agreed to do the role, but withdrew last fall. To what degree the challenge of writing for Sills may have deflected Argento's usually stable dramatic sense cannot be known, but he has produced...
...mighty, but the New York City Opera has Beverly Sills. In 1966 she became a top star overnight, singing the coloratura role of Cleopatra in Handel's Julius Caesar. She repaid City Opera by becoming the bestselling box-office draw in its 34-year history. Last January, when Sills, 49, announced that she would end her singing career in 1980, she promised that she would stay on at City Opera?as co-director with Julius Rudel, 57, her mentor and director of the company for 21 years. Last week "Good Queen Bev," as Rudel has called her since her smashing...
...works are all but forgotten. They are opera seria, the early style of Italian opera that can present obstacles for the modern listener: dry recitatives, stiff action, mezzos singing male roles. But there is splendid music here, and even some good drama. Arleen Augér pours out brilliant coloratura cascades in Mitridate as the old King's fiancée; Baltsa stands out as Farnace, Mitridate's arrogant son. In La Clemenza, Baker's unique timbre and intensity fire the role of the vindictive Princess Vitellia, and Burrows is appropriately regal as the forgiving Emperor. These...